


The Key is Positivity

by SociallyAwkwardFox (Maze_Runner_Fae)



Series: The Key Is... [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Fluff and Angst, Galra Keith, Humor, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7452934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maze_Runner_Fae/pseuds/SociallyAwkwardFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off a suggestion from Lynchie, about Keith finding out the advantages to being part Galra.  Takes place after the first one, but it doesn't have to be read to understand this one.<br/>-----------<br/>Lance bugs Keith into figuring out what special abilities come with being part Galra. Naturally that means ridiculous tests and interesting finding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Key is Positivity

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to have this up yesterday, but dinner ended up running late so I didn't get to finish. It was also supposed to be all humor and niceness, but somehow angst happened. I really need to stop doing that. Hope you all enjoy all the same!

“So does this mean you have super powers?”

Keith looked down at where Lance had his head resting on his lap because no amount of Keith shoving him could get the other boy to stop doing it. “What are you talking about?”

“Well you’re part alien and if comics taught me anything, that means you’ve got to have some super human abilities.”

“Comics?”

“Yeah. How do you not know what comic books are?”

“I know what they are. I’m just confused why you’re using them as a basis for real life situations.”

“It’s not like I have anything else to go off of! Come on, you can’t tell me it wouldn’t be cool to have powers like Superman or-”

“Wasn’t Superman all alien?”

“That’s…” Lance glared angrily at the ceiling once he realized Keith was actually right about something pop culture related. “What about Star-Lord or Captain Marvel or-”

“I get the point and I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

“So?”

“So what, Lance?”

“Do you have any enhanced abilities or super powers because you’re part alien?”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

A huge grin spread across Lance’s face like a cat that caught the canary and Keith seriously debated smothering that look away. “It’s important for the team that we know that answer. Battle strategies and all that.”

“Fine. If it will actually get you to shut up about it, let’s do it.”

“Do what?”

“Figure out whether I have abilities or whatever you want to call them.”

“Super powers.”

“No.” When Lance opened his mouth to argue, Keith quickly pushed himself off the couch so Lance fell to the floor with an impressive thud. “Are you coming? I do actually have things I need to do today that don’t include humoring you.”

“Where are we going?”

“The training room. Where else would we go to figure it out?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think you would actually agree to do this.”

“Good to know you really thought this one through.”

“Same amount of thought that goes into your plans. See enemy, attack enemy.”

Keith stopped walking so suddenly that Lance collided straight into his back and nearly lost his balance. “I’m about to attack someone.”

“I’m going to tell Shiro on you.”

“You won’t get the chance.”

“You don’t mean that. Do you? Keith?” The pitch of Lance’s voice raised just a little higher as Keith continued on his way to the training room without bothering to answer. “Keith?”

* * *

 

“This is ridiculous. I didn’t magically develop the ability to see through things and I’m pretty sure the Galra can’t even do that.”

“I know that.”

“Then why am I wearing a blindfold?”

“I’m going to throw things at you and see if you can hit them.”

The blindfold blocked Lance’s view of Keith’s eyes narrowing in response to Lance’s blasé statement. “You’re just taking this as an opportunity to hit me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t accidentally hit you on purpose in months. I just want to see if you’ve got freaky abilities that you didn’t know about before. Now get your sword up.”

“I’m seriously questioning my decision to agree to this.”

“Too late!”

The sound of something cutting through the air was the only warning Keith got that something would soon be hitting his face. On instinct, he brought his sword up to deflect whatever it was like he would deflect a blow from an opponent. Whatever the thing was knocked against the blade and fell to the floor at Keith’s feet. Keith could practically hear the sound of Lance’s jaw dropping in shock before he started spluttering.

“How did you do that?”

“Heard it.”

“No way. That’s not even possible.”

“Your other senses get heightened when you take one away. My hearing is just compensating for my loss of vision.”

“Not that well, that quickly.” The sound of things banging around then Lance letting out a triumphant sound reached Keith’s ears. “There’s an easy way to test this. I’ll just move around randomly throwing things at you and we’ll see just how good your hearing is.”

“Fine.”

Keith gripped the hilt of his sword tighter as he listened carefully to the sound of Lance moving around him in a circle. When he finally tossed another object at him, it came from the back on his left side so he had to twist his body around to block it. The next one came much quicker from the same direction he had been facing before and made a sharp sound when it met his blade. Three more were easily deflected off his blade in quick succession without Keith even having to think about what he was doing.

The moment the fifth one clinked off his blade Keith moved the blade to point at where he knew Lance was now standing and removed the blindfold. A dumbfounded expression was plastered on Lance’s face as he stared unblinkingly at Keith with wide eyes. The objects he still had cradled in the crook of his left arm fell to the floor and scattered across the ground. He finally managed to close his mouth with a sharp snap, but continued to stare at Keith like he didn’t quite understand what he was looking at.

“My hearing might be a little better than a normal humans.”

“Might be? Might be! No human would be able to do that without tons of training and they still might not be able to do it. That was insane.”

“What good is it going to do in combat? So I can hear things better. Who cares?”

A bunch of indiscernible noises came out of Lance’s mouth that vaguely reminded Keith of a strange cat he used to feed. “There’s plenty of situations it could help! If you have to fight in the dark or we need to hear what someone’s saying, but we can’t risk getting closer. I’m sure Shiro could think of more.”

“Okay, it might be helpful sometimes. It won’t when we’re flying or using Voltron.”

“I’m glad you mentioned that.”

“What now?”

“Well the advanced hearing is great and everything, but that doesn’t account for how fast you were able to react.”

“It was just instinct. Even you have enough instinct to keep something from hitting you.”

“Doesn’t mean you’d be able to react in time.”

“I’m going to regret asking this, but what do you exactly plan on doing to test my reflexes.”

“We’re going to need Shiro.”

“Whatever you’ve got in mind, he won’t agree to.” Keith let out a heavy sigh at the excited grin Lance had on his face. “Stop smiling and go get him. Remember I have-”

“Things to do today like brooding and glowering. I get it.”

* * *

 

Somehow Lance managed to get not only Shiro to come to the training room, but all the other occupants of the castle except for Coran. The excited way Allura and Pidge were talking together had Keith wishing he had refused to humor Lance and done anything else instead. Not even the friendly thumbs up Hunk sent him made Keith feel any better about what was about to happen. He was so distracted by Pidge and Allura he didn’t notice Shiro coming over to put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“You doing okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” The hand on Keith’s shoulder gave a gentle squeeze then dropped down to Shiro’s side. “We understand if you’re still having trouble adjusting. No one would think any less of you.”

“Really, I’m fine. I’m still me, right?”

“Right. Lance mentioned something about you having enhanced hearing.”

“He threw things at me while I was blindfolded.”

“That was mentioned, too. It’s good to know though. It could prove useful in the future.”

Keith nodded his head in acknowledgement and turned his attention back to where Allura and Pidge were messing with some sort of Altean technology Keith hadn’t seen before. “Do you have any idea what they’re doing?”

“Allura mentioned they had a device they would use for similar purposes that Pidge could fix up to do what we need. It might take a few minutes. Perfect time for us to talk.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“I was wondering what’s going on between you and Lance. You’ve been… closer since we found out.”

“We’re friends. I guess.”

“Just friends?” Something about Shiro’s casual tone had Keith turning to look at the older Paladin and was confused to see a knowing smile on his face.

“What else would we be? Best friends?”

“Nothing. I was just curious. I am glad the two of you are friends. It will be good for the team dynamic.”

“Right.”

“Looks like they’re done. What will we be doing?”

Pidge moved her attention from the laptop in front of her to Shiro and Keith with an excited gleam in her eyes. “This little device is going to fly around shooting little energy bursts at you that you’ll have to block or dodge. It’ll gradually increase in difficulty every minute. Whoever gets to a higher level has faster reflexes.”

“Sounds simple enough. I’ll go first.”

After grabbing a practice shield and sword, Shiro took a defensive stance in the middle of the room with his eyes focused on the little robot. The robot started shooting energy bursts at Shiro with plenty of time in between each one for Shiro to prepare for the next one. Slowly the speed of the shots increased until they could barely be seen before Shiro was blocking them. It didn’t take much longer for Shiro to get hit in the chest by a shot he couldn’t get his shield up in time to block.

“You’re up, Keith.”

Keith took a deep breath as he readied himself for the small to devices to take its first shot at him. All his focus narrowed in on the device until he completely forgot about the others still in the room with him. His eyes stayed trained on the device as it flitted around in the air trying to catch him off guard. By the time it finally managed to succeed with a well-aimed energy burst to his weaker side, Keith was drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. Every muscle in his body ached, but he still felt like he could have gone a little longer and worked a little harder.

“That was truly incredible.” Allura’s bright eyes were totally zoned in on Keith along with an absolutely radiant smile meant all for him. “It has been a long time since I have seen such a fine display. Very impressive.”

“Thanks. What was my time?”

Pidge pushed her glasses up her nose and held her hand up for the little robot to rest down on instead of zooming spastically around her. “You lasted three minutes longer than Shiro. Lance was right. Your reflexes are quite a bit faster than a regular human’s reflexes. It’s not surprising you never noticed. There aren’t many situations you would need to be that quick for and even if you did, it would just seem normal to you.”

“Is there anything else that might be different?”

“Well the Garrison makes all their pilots take vision tests so if there was anything different about that, you would already know. We’ve all seen how much you train so we know you have great endurance, which might have something to do with the Galra part of you, but we wouldn’t know unless we had data of humans at peak endurance levels and we don’t. We can only use Shiro as a comparison for so much. Your strength seems pretty normal for a person of your size and built, but I could be wrong. What do you think, Shiro?”

“I think your right. His strength isn’t greater than it should be.”

“So I have enhanced hearing, reflexes, and maybe endurance.”

“Not really surprising considering the Galra are a militant race. They’ve trained their kind for centuries to be excellent soldiers and all those things would help reach that goal. I may be a tech person, but even I can appreciate how incredible biology can be.”

“Yeah, incredible.”

“You know, I should be getting back to work. Things to do. Hunk, you coming?” The speed that Pidge managed to bounce up with her laptop in her arms surprised Keith and had him opening his mouth to ask about her sudden change in topic, but she was already dragging Hunk out of the training room.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing. Allura and I need to go talk strategy about the next mission. Do you need anything before we go?”

“No.”

Shiro reached up to ruffle Keith’s hair fondly before he followed Allura out of the training room, leaving Keith alone with Lance again. Suddenly the shield and sword he was still holding felt unbelievably heavy and Keith found himself letting them fall to the floor at his feet. He became acutely aware of his hands shaking violently at his sides and no amount of clenching made them stop. The feeling of his legs giving out took him by surprise so his knees ended up slamming painfully against the ground.

Everything around him began to blur and dark spots started to dance around his vision where there hadn’t been any before. The realization of how out of control Keith was in his own body made him feel helpless and scared as his vision got darker and darker. His own breathing was so loud he couldn’t hear all the ambient noise he had become used to since he started living at the castle. It was all too much and Keith had no idea how to make any of it stop.

The feeling of warm pressure on his cheeks broke through the isolation his body had been sinking into and reminded Keith that someone was still there. That simple reminder seemed to be enough for his body to decide to calm back down until he could hear again. The buzz of electronics, the whoosh of air being supplied to the room so they could breath, the sound of someone singing something in a language Keith didn’t understand. Being able to hear again bled into slowly being able to see everything around him once more. First in blurs, then back to the clarity Keith was used to.

“Lance.”

The warm hands on Keith’s face pulled away, but were quickly replaced by strong arms wrapped around his waist instead so their bodies were nearly pressed chest to chest. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. Just a panic attack. It’s going away. Everything’s fine.”

“I-”

Something about the certainty in Lance’s eyes made Keith feel reassured and let him feel safe enough to let his exhausted body fall completely into Lance’s body. Tears started to pour down Keith’s face and dampened the soft fabric his face was resting on. His body shook uncontrollably, but he didn’t feel everything fading away from him like he had early and he felt grateful for that. It’d been a long time since he’d felt utterly exhausted and he was sure he would pass out if the same thing happened a second time.

Gradually the tears slowed down until he was no longer crying and his body stopped shaking so he was completely still for the first time in what felt like hours. The hands that had been steadily rubbing up and down his back stilled then dropped back down to Keith’s waist. Lance tried to lean his body away, but Keith just tightened the hold his hands had on his chest until he stopped. One of Lance’s hands came up to push his hair out of his face, but he didn’t try to move him again.

“How did you know to do that?”

“One of my little sister had really bad anxiety. We didn’t realize how bad it was until one day when we were at the beach. It was just the two of us. I went to get some water to put in the moat we made for our sandcastle and these boys decided to pick on her. New people always made her nervous and them picking on her only made things worse. It was all too much and she had a panic attack. I had no idea what to do. I was like nine or ten at the time. I’ve never felt more helpless than I had that day. Luckily, a young couple noticed what was happening. The girl was studying to be a psychologist so she knew what was happening and helped me calm my sister down.” The fingers on Keith’s waist dug in a little harder and Lance’s head dropped sideway onto Keith’s own. “After that, I made sure I knew exactly what to do. I wanted to be sure I would be able to help my sister if it ever happened again.”

“Thank you.”

“It was nothing.”

“I felt completely useless. It was like I was trapped in my own body and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

“Makes sense.”

Keith pulled his head back just enough that he would be able to look Lance in the eyes. “Why? This has never happened before. I’ve… I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

“My sister told me that’s how she would feel during panic attacks. Completely helpless to do anything to stop it once it started and it only ever happened to her when she felt that way. When those boys were picking on her, she felt out of control and every panic attack she’s had since then has been because she felt utterly helpless. You’ve just found out you’re part alien. Panic is a better response to that than a lot of the alternatives.”

“I’ve been this way my whole life, but for some reason it feels like everything’s changed. In my mind I know it really hasn’t, but knowing just makes it different.”

“Not to me. I still hate you.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Got you to smile.”

“No, it didn’t.” Keith tucked his head back down against Lance’s neck so the other Paladin couldn’t see the small smile on his face. “What if we find out there are other things different about me? Things that make me dangerous.”

“We’ll have Hunk hug it out of you or his girlfriend. Shay might actually be better at hugging it out of you.”

“She’s not his girlfriend. He just admires her very much.”

A cut off snort was buried in Keith’s hair as Lance’s body shook with laughter that made Keith’s body move with him. “No one believes that and no one cares he’s got an alien girlfriend. Just like no one cares you’re part Galra. Although, it does explain the mullet. Only the Galra would think that’s a good look.”

“At least I don’t wear an ugly, puke colored hoodie jacket.”

“What? My jacket is awesome! Yours isn’t even a full jacket. Who wears half jackets? Losers named Keith that’s who and don’t get me started on the stupid gloves.”

“The gloves are to prevent blisters!”

“That doesn’t mean you have to wear them all the time! Do you even wash them?”

“I’m not an animal, unlike you when you eat. Pigs have more manners than you.” Keith felt a pleasant hum through his body at the familiar teasing that made him feel more normal than he had in days. It reminded him of the night he found out and Lance had come to his room to comfort him so he didn’t feel alone. Their bantering back and forth had done the same thing then that it did now. There was something about their exchanges that made Keith feel at ease and less like the walls were closing in on him. It made the future seem brighter than what Keith imagined when he was left alone with his thoughts. Like he would be able to get through the struggle of coming to terms with this new part of him and come out on the other side better for having done so.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a third part to this based off another suggestion from Lynchie so be on the look out for that. I'm also going to be posting a list of songs I listened to while writing this on my Tumblr (sociallyawkwardfoxwriter.tumblr.com/) for anyone who's interesting. You can also go there to talk Voltron with me, ask question, send prompt requests, and whatever else you can do on there. Until next time!


End file.
